Te Morehu tōku Tūpuna Tūatahi. My first Ancestor Te Morehu.

Te Mōrehu Oti (1898-1966)

Te Morehu is my great grandfather and the other tupuna that I have hanging on my wall. With my findings of the whakapapa I decided that I needed to go backwards from my koro Jack Matepu Oti by following birth or death certificates. My koro Jack Matepu Oti stated Mōrehu Oti which led to Whīa Te Oti aka(Ngāparaihe) which states that Wētere Te Aho and Mātana Te Aho were her parents. That gave me a starting point and move up to Pōtatau Te wherowhero or Te Aho o te rangi wharepu.

 I searched the Whakapapa of Kingitanga to hopefully find out where we connected, but when I looked through it Te Aho wasn't anywhere in line near Tāwhiāo to even be his brother. It stated on the Kīngitānga Whakapapa that Te Aho was the son of Pūkauae from Ngāti Hāua and his mother was Hourua of Ngāti Māhuta. I had to then see if there was any evidence of whakapapa in the Maori land court.

Again it wouldn't be right to make little mention of my tūpuna here, I have often been told that he was a man of mana and what he said went. Some of my whānau speak of a man that was grumpy and mean for discipline and others speak of a man that could do no wrong and was everything in the world to them. I would love to tell more about him but I don't know that much about him and I would love to know more.

I think of him as a Koro that probably wanted his moko's to be well behaved, probably seen and not heard but always around him.


His siblings.                                              age at death


TeMōrehu 1898                                            69yrs
Wetini 1903                                                  53yrs
Raurangatira 1904                                      40yrs
Matiekikawhia1912                                     61yrs
Joseph Maunganui1915                               53yrs
Wallace Pareraware 1917                            53yrs
Maroa 1918                                                  58yrs

These dates come from the Birth/death &Marriage Records. Nanny Whia's death certificate only states she left 6 boys and 1 girl.

Te Mōrehu married Ngāronoa Tōne Huia.
Their kids are. 
Jack
Tangiwai
Molly
Mere
Noema
Helen
Rosie                died aged 11 in 1946
Queeny             died aged 19 in 1949

I found the last 2 in the death registry, I never knew about them. 

My maternal grandmother was Molly ann Te kapu her name would prove important to me later in the journey.